1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a novel method of manufacturing optically-active 1,2-diols useful materials for synthesis of physiologically-active compounds having specific uses in the fields of drugs and agrichemicals.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As to the method of synthesizing optically-active 1,2-diols, a method synthesizing (S)-1,2-propanediol, (S)-1,2-pentanediol, (S)-1,2-hexanediol with an amino acid such as L-alanine as starting material through alpha-hydroxy acid as intermediate is known but this method needs an expensive reducing agent and can hardly be called a commercial method ("Nippon Kagaku Zasshi," vol. 91, p. 265, 1970).
Meanwhile, as a method of manufacturing optically-active 1,2-diols by the use of microorganisms, a method of manufacturing (R)-1,2-propanediol from glucose et cetera using microorganisms of Clostridium genus is known [West German patent DE No. 3336051 (1985), Chemical Abstract; vol. 105, p. 77, 513 (1986)]. Whitesides et. al. reported that they had used glycerol dehydrogenase obtained from a microorganism of Cellulomonas genus and could thus obtain (R)-1,2-propanediol and (R)-1,2-butanediol from 1-hydroxy-2-propanone and 1-hydroxy-2-butanone, respectively [Journal of Organic Chemistry (J. Org. Chem.), vol. 51, p. 25 (1986)].
As examples of biochemical steric inversion cases, the racemization of optically-active compounds by the use of racemiase are well known such as cases involving amino acids, but it is impossible to make any optically-active substance from such racemic compounds by the opposite route.
Thus, all these methods had many problems still to be solved before commercialization of any thereof, and early development of a commercially advantageous method for manufacture of optically-active 1,2-diols has been looked forward to.